Now THAT was an interesting commute!

The temps yesterday got into the low 40s, and surprisingly didn't dip down below freezing last night. This morning it was right at 40 degrees and looking out the window all of the ice on the road was melted just making everything wet. WOOHOO! Broke out my hybrid commuter for the first time in about 3 months. As soon as I started rolling the difference between this bike and my winter bike was crazy obvious. It felt like I was pedaling air.

That is until I turned the corner and faced the headwind. Steady at 30 mph with gusts topping 60 mph. I dropped my bike down into my 2nd lowest cog and just spun. I could hold about 8-10 mph into the wind, but when the gusts hit it would immediately slow me to about 2-3 mph. It felt like my bike would suddenly hit something. Then after the gust passed I would work my way back up to 8-10 mph for about 20 seconds until the next gust. I'm glad I was on the hybrid as at least I didn't have to fight the bike on top of the wind. I noticed as I rode through my neighborhood that the wind had opened all the doors on the mailboxes. I saw a squirrel clinging to the bottom of a branch for dear life. I noticed one of the flags down by city hall had been shredded.

They had predicted the wind, so that didn't catch me off guard. What I didn't expect, however, was about halfway to work when it started to rain. Not a deluge, but not a sprinkle either. It was coming down steady and with the wind was driven into me completely sideways. I just had to laugh at the absurdity of me being out in this weather. I wasn't the craziest person out though: I passed a guy on roller blades.